U.K. regulators probe Facebook ‘mood’ test

Clarity sought on secret study that tweaked users' emotions

LONDON – British data protection authorities are investigating revelations that Facebook conducted a psychological experiment on its users.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said Wednesday that it wants to learn more about the circumstances of the experiment, carried out by two U.S. universities and the social network.

The researchers manipulated the news feeds of about 700,000 randomly selected users to study the impact of “emotional contagion,” or how emotional states are transferred to others. The researchers said the evidence showed that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people and “in the complete absence of nonverbal cues.”

Facebook acknowledged that the research had been carried out over a single week in 2012.

The survey provoked an outcry on social media sites and sparked essays in media outlets including The New York Times and The Atlantic about the ethics of manipulating users’ feeds without their consent.

Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, told television network NDTV in India that “we clearly communicated really badly about this and that we really regret.” Later she added: “Facebook has apologized and certainly we never want to do anything that upsets users.”

Facebook’s data use policy says the company can use user information for “internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.”

Suzy Moat, a Warwick Business School assistant professor of behavioral science, said businesses regularly do studies on how to influence behavior. She cited the example of Facebook and Amazon experimenting with showing different groups of people slightly different versions of their websites to see if one is better than another at getting customers to buy products.

“On the other hand, it’s extremely understandable that many people are upset that their behavior may have been manipulated for purely scientific purposes without their consent,” Moat said. “In particular, Facebook’s user base is so wide that everyone wonders if they were in the experiment.”

We have lost our discretion towards the things that are being reported to us.
It makes me remember a story I listened to in my childhood:
“डोंगराला आग लागली, पळा पळा, पळा!”
(= The Mountain is on fire, run run run away!)
Well, a mountain never catches fire. But people weak at discretion will listen to it and start running away from the mountain!